Difference between YYYY and IYYY

[Liam Caffrey]

What is the difference between the ISO standard for years (IYYY) and the
usual YYYY??

Regards

Liam Caffrey
caffreyl.del...@nortelwetworks.com

[Jerry Gitomer]

This facetious response was emailed to Liam Caffrey at
<379F21FF...@nortelnetworks.deletethispart.com>...

Hi Liam,

The answer is obvious -- IYYY (ISO standard years) are those
that comply with the ISO standard. Of course, like me, you may
wonder which years are standard, which are non-standard, what's
the difference, and who cares. ;-)

The difference, from what I recall, is that ISO standard
years begin on the first day of the week containing (here is
where I am not certain, but I refuse to let that stop me) either
nothing but days in January or containing four or more days in
the month of January.

I believe this was done for the same reason that many
organizations have internal calendars with 13 4-week months per
year. It makes it easier to compare monthly results between
years.

Or maybe the majority of the members of the standards
committee were agnostic and decided that the calendars in common
use were based on religious grounds and should therefore be
supplanted.

regards
Jerry Gitomer

Liam Caffrey wrote in message
<379F21FF...@nortelnetworks.deletethispart.com>...

[Sybrand Bakker]

I like the second explanation...
They should have been agnostic (and I don't want to start a religious
debate), because according to ISO the first day of the week is Monday, which
is not the first day of the week in any religion :).
Secondly, your second week definition is correct, there is a minimum of four
days.
I know, because we had to write a 53-line decode to calculate it in the
Oracle 6 days, when Oracle didn't support ISO week numbers and years.

Hth,

Sybrand Bakker, Oracle DBA

Jerry Gitomer <jgit...@hbsrx.com> wrote in message
news:7nnavp$n7p$1...@autumn.news.rcn.net...